


Flebile

by rukafais



Series: an endless song [12]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, divine is also there but honestly not enough to get her own tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 22:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20104969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: (meaning: mournfully)Grimm scours another land clean of regrets. Brumm fusses over him. Grimm fusses too, in his own way.





	Flebile

**Author's Note:**

> and back to your regularly scheduled programming of Gay Goth Bugs

It’s not often that he has to do physical activity, at least in the laboring sense. Dances, performances, combat - those things come easily, flow easily, and don’t feel like work (though Brumm frets over him and tells him not to push himself so much, and he takes the hint, because even a vessel with the Nightmare’s strength flowing through them is still a mortal vessel).

But this place is piled high with the unburied dead. It’s striking, in a terrible way.

One bug stands alone in the wreckage of their life and world, adrift in struggling silence, and painstakingly pulls the bodies down one by one. They dig ceaselessly, paying no heed to the scarlet phantoms responsible for collecting the unquiet spirits that haunt the land; they were summoned, and now they are here, and they will leave when their task is done.

“Do you mean to do this by yourself?”

A nod.

_There is nobody else left_, a voice seems to say. It flutes inside Grimm’s head. It sounds like a mournful wind, like a gauze-draped emptiness, and he wonders - not for the first time, nor for the last - what this place looked like when it was full of sound and life and worship.

The god that was once here is gone. He sees the echoes of their presence in their shattered murals, in the wind-worn grooves of stone and sand, in craters that were once lakes and oases - but try as he might to see them as they were, they don’t appear to him. He catches the glimpse of vast wings and iridescent eyes in the flame, and nothing more.

(_A young god_, the Nightmare King whispers. _They will not grow older._

The sadness of the god and vessel is a mirror, reflected back at each other.)

“It will take you a lifetime.”

Another nod. _Yes._

They continue to dig; their hands are scratched from the effort, he notices. How many have they buried already, not even making a noticeable dent in this landscape of corpses?

Even if they lived an eternity, still it might not be enough.

It is not the duty of the Troupe to see to the dead, necessarily. They are visitors, strangers in dead lands; no land belongs to them but the realm of Nightmare and its twisting, scarlet paths. They owe nothing but their duty.

But sometimes, it is not about owing, but about choice.

“It will be done faster with help.”

* * *

The bodies are easy to move. They always are, to him. Without the weight of a soul inside, they are light as wing-strands and gossamer. He could probably stack them high, but he carries them one by one, because each one was a person once, even if that person is now gone, borne on the wind to whatever fate awaits them in the end. Even those empty shells deserve respect.

The Grimmkin don’t chatter at their morbid task; they simply sing and chant over the dead as they move them into the earth prepared for them.

Brumm finds it more difficult, but he doesn’t complain. Grimm tells him he doesn’t have to, that they can handle this themselves, and the musician simply shakes his head.

“I was like them, once,” he says, soft. Even behind the mask, Grimm can tell his expression is sad; it shows in the set of his body, the waver of his voice.

The light-hearted response of _well i certainly hope you aren’t like that now_ dies silently in his throat, because it would be cruel to say and presumptuous to assume. Some wounds are too deep to ever heal over.

“So you were,” he replies, at last. Brumm presses against him, taking comfort in his presence. Grimm presses a light kiss to his forehead and holds him close, just for a moment, before they break apart and continue their work.

He keeps an eye on him, even so. Divine laughs about him fussing unnecessarily (she, too, is helping, an unusual sight; she prefers to keep her claws sharpened for possible intrusion. But here in this grey land piled high with the dead, she doesn’t feel it’s necessary.

“I can always sharpen them again,” she says, light and careless. But she, too, came from a broken land, and though she doesn't say it, she understands.)

* * *

It takes a while before their task is done. When Brumm finally becomes weary and retires, when Divine feels like she’s had enough, Grimm and his kindred continue to toil.

The Troupe Master is a sharp-edged shadow in the long twilight that drapes over the land. He moves with steadfast, methodical purpose; he trudges to and fro across the empty landscape, carrying bodies, filling graves.

The memory will stay with him for the rest of his life. It will continue on once he is burned in the flame; this memory of someone else’s great loss, a civilisation’s end. Thousands dead, with only a single survivor.

It is not an unfamiliar story. That simple fact weighs on him, more than anything else.

* * *

In the manner of dreams, or nightmares, the work lasts a single night. Time passes strangely, when it comes to the Troupe; this is no exception.

Grimm cleans himself off before he returns to the tents, but the lingering scratchiness of dust and grave soil remains. Rather than wrap himself up and remain in solitude, as he’s done before after accomplishing something that would leave any normal bug exhausted, he lingers at the entrance to Brumm’s bedroom.

He can just make out his musician’s sleeping figure; that means he should take his leave.

(He doesn’t want to enter Brumm’s rooms without the musician giving permission for him to be there, especially in something as vulnerable as sleep. He rarely likes to linger when they are empty, either; this is something that is his musician’s alone, and more than anything he understands he desires a great deal of space.

He must be careful with boundaries, at these times more than any other.)

He retires, instead, to what they generally consider a living room. He piles blankets and cushions around himself to make the kind of nest he’s accustomed to; it’s as comfortable to him as hanging upside down in his room tends to be.

It still feels cold. He knows why, but he’s hardly going to wake Brumm up just to satisfy his own comfort.

* * *

He’s on the edge of sleep when he feels Brumm’s warmth against his. Neither of them say much at first; they’re both tired.

“You should be in bed,” Grimm mumbles, eyes half-closed.

“So should you, master,” Brumm retorts. Grimm simply sighs; he has no good answer. It’s true.

“I didn’t want to wake you. You know how it is.” They’ve talked about these things before, haven’t they? Or, at least, he thinks they have. At times like these, he can’t recall well what it is they have and haven’t talked about.

“Mrmm...I don’t mind. You know that.”

“I know, I know. And yet, I...” Grimm trails off, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. He blinks, once or twice, heavy with postponed sleep.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you...or make it feel like you’re trapped here. That you’d stay because I asked it of you, not because you wanted it...”

He doesn’t know if he’s making much sense. The words are hard to say; they are heavy in his mouth. But they are worries that make him heartsick; they are always present.

(He’d feared once that he didn’t love him. Now, he fears he loves him too much.

He knows what it means, has seen it - that ability to love too much, an overflow of feeling that twists and burns without restraint or mercy. If he fears anything, it is becoming anything like her; that seething sunlight, thinking that choice - the thing he loves most in mortals, the ability to turn away, to deny even a god - is a betrayal.)

“You should always have a choice..an ability...to be away from me.” Even if it breaks his heart, even if he’s left bereft or lonely. Loneliness and heartbreak are things he can survive.

(Brumm has a future outside the Troupe, if he wishes for it; Grimm is the master, and holds everything that comes with it. A responsibility, a cycle, an endless dance.)

It is a weight, a burden, to love someone bound to such a cycle. He knows. He tries to make it easy.

Brumm’s laugh is quiet and sad. He presses a kiss against Grimm’s cheek, and Grimm leans into it, eyes closing.

“I know, master. I’m here because I want to be.”

Grimm exhales, and doesn’t ask _are you certain?_ because that, too, is a kind of pressure, asking for reassurance. Instead, he buries his face in Brumm’s shoulder and holds him like a lifeline, entirely vulnerable.

“You did too much,” Brumm mumbles. Grimm can tell he’s trying not to let his voice waver and doesn’t call attention to it. “You always say things like this when you’re tired, master. Go to sleep.”

Grimm loosens his grip, so Brumm can leave if he’s not comfortable, and does as his musician asks.

(When he wakes up the next morning, Brumm is still there, just as close. The tight knot in his chest undoes itself, a little.)


End file.
